Tenchi 2214
by DynnaChae
Summary: In a far distant future, Tenchi has been slain. His queens seem reluctant to find out the truth, but only one person knows the truth of Tenchi's death. Not your Average Tenchi Muyo story. That's for damn sure!
1. The Queens of Earth

"We've come a long way, haven't we Aeka?"  
  
"Ryoko..."  
  
The pirate ran her fingers through here hair, letting the wind whip through her cloaks as she gazed down from upon high. "Why does the anniversary of our greatest tragedy always make me so melancholy?  
  
Aeka stood beside Ryoko, looking a bit more regal, but definitely inferior to Ryoko's grace and luster. The two women stood side by side, gazing down from the highest watchpoint. "Isn't that the way it should be?"  
  
Ryoko turned to gaze into Aeka's eyes, as she'd done so many times before. "His misfortune was our greatest luck. And yet, such a tragedy as well." The amber eyed girl allowed humor to flash in her eyes, lightening Aeka's spirits.  
  
The princess' head lowered just a bit. She didn't want to feel so blissful about people dying, but this was the destiny that was chosen for her. She couldn't complain. She was truly happy. "Aye, we've come a long way..." Aeka stared out into nothing particular.  
  
"What's got you down?" Ryoko stood, placing her hands on her hips. "Look out at our world, all our people smile."  
  
And the lady Aeka did gaze out. It was amazing that this was what they called Earth so long ago. Such a flimsy, backwater planet with meager buildings and primative technology. They didn't even have docking pads for air ships. They didn't even have airships. Now buildings reached the old Moon. Murals and statues and paintings of their queens adorned the buildings. Silk tapestries flowed from the roofs to the base of buildings, lavishing it's cemented sides with Aeka standing so proudly. Her hand crossed over her chest, she smiled so smugly on the tapestry. Ryoko overlooked her from another building. The goddesses only stood to represent all they had created. Gods of their own empires. A new world, in which Jurai could not compare, though they allied in the warmest of graces. "They do smile, don't they?" Aeka smiled "Well, let's visit his grave nonetheless."  
  
As the ladies descended from their point so high up in the sky, people in the streets cleared the way, bowing their heads in recognition of their queens. The two women, standing so proudly and boldly could only hide their pride with feigned grace as they headed towards the cemetery.  
  
"Oye baka!" Ryoko shoved Aeka.  
  
Aeka wheeled around and held her arm. "What did I do?!"  
  
"YOU forgot to get flowers for the grave!" Ryoko pointed accusingly.  
Aeka glared through her long eyelashes. "ME?! it's YOUR turn this year!"  
  
The two women stared each other down.  
  
"Excuse me, your majesty..." came a very faint voice.  
  
Ryoko turned her deathglare from Aeka to a softened one. A child gazed up at her with fear. The florist's daughter who they had bought flowers from so many times before. With trembling hands, she held up a highly decorated bouquet wrapped in the finest of silk cloths, secured with a fancy ribbon. Ryoko bent over and ruffled the girl's messy hair. "You always look out for us, don't you Mai-chan? Thank you." The first lady of Earth took the flowers.  
  
"Allow us to pay you for the flowers." Aeka took hold of her robes.   
  
Mai's hands shot up defensively. "On this anniversary, there are no price on these flowers. They're for our king."  
  
The two queens nodded softly and thanked Mai for her kind words.   
  
At a grave in a cemetery so solemn, their Lord's body lay beneath the ground as if it were just another being of this planet. But that's what Tenchi was. He was an earthling and a rogue Jurai heir. He chose the path he wanted, leading these ladies down it with them. It would only be a short amount of time before they'd realize they never needed him in the first place. Every year since his death, his queens would visit his grave, praying amongst themselves and offering a meager bouquet of roses upon his crumbling tombstone. Some of the inhabitants of Earth felt that this burial site was unfit for even a dog, but his queens knew otherwise - this is where he belonged.   
  
"Every year I visit this place and every year I hate it that much more." Aeka looked away from Tenchi's tombstone while shuddering. The dry wind swept through her elegant robes like sandpaper on an infant's delicate skin.   
  
Ryoko's heartless gaze upon Tenchi's flimsy obelisk clearly showed her disinterest in her whereabouts. She was never one to live in the past. This was for the people who felt she should show she cared. They gave Tenchi all the credit for their hard work. Forever working in the back ranks, struggling and toiling, doing the dirty work, bleeding and paining over Tenchi's wrongs to make them right, only so he could sit back and take all the credit. She only did it for the people that never even noticed her before he died. Punching the ground, she sent a shockwave rippling underground and up through the stone, splitting it in two. "Do you hate it... or just him?"  
  
Aeka lowered her head, tears brimming in her eyes. A soul filled with guilt. "I don't want to say. I don't want to speak ill of him."  
  
"Then I will." Ryoko stood to her feet. "You lived, you died, we're over it. Tch..." The girl wiped her eyes. "I swore I'd never shed another tear for you, because I hated you, but here I am, less than happy. Why?" She fell back to her knees. "Why don't you just vanish from our memories??!!" She held her head.  
  
Aeka wrapped her arms around Ryoko's neck. "Don't say that! Don't be haunted by the past. Grow from it. Look!" The princess held Ryoko's hands up. "Look at how strong you've become. Where are your jewels? The jewels Washu implanted into you when you were born? You don't need them because you're stronger! If you can survive without the jewels, you can survive with a few bad memories."  
  
Ryoko stare horrified at Tenchi's cracked tomb. "How will we explain this to people?" She lightly rested her hand over Aeka's clasped hands, holding the first queen of Earth steady as she trembled in the second queen's arms. "What will we say happened to his tomb?"  
  
"Vandals. Now let's go home." Aeka pulled Ryoko to her feet. "Forget about today."  
  
"And forget about every other day..." The pirate faded away with Aeka's hand in hers.  
  
In another part of the galaxy, the empress Tsunami shifted uncomfortably in her tree-carved throne. This day always made her feel most uneasy. She spent most of her time drifting off in meetings, her husband gently nudging her in the side, giving her a warm smile. She'd smile back, but it was a hollow, empty smile. She feigned interest in conversation as her husband chatted with all kinds of aristocrats. Her children dashed about in the lush gardens of Jurai's palace, but she couldn't find peace in seeing everyone smile on the day of Tenchi's death. There would always be an unease.  
  
A secret between allies? A restless sleeper.  
  
End of Ch 1.  
  
A/N: Dynna Chae here! Woot! I killed Tenchi off! Hard to explain where I'm going with this, so you'll have to stick with it. *clasps her hands together* HONTO NI GOMEN NASAI! It'll all come together! 


	2. Jurai Summons

Ryoko lazily lounged about on a long divan, admiring the children of her servants prance through the palace halls as if it were their own house. She grew a bit nostalgic for the days when she'd have to run after a little one. Such a tedious boy he had always been. He was gone, though. She always wondered when he'd return. He has such bright golden eyes, he never fit in with his peers on Earth. Everyone was so basic on earth. Such common eyes, brown and blue and green and gray. Golden eyes were surely not human, but he was accepted as one of them. His spiky black hair had a mind of it's own. It was only when his peers discovered that he was the son of the first queen of Earth, that they understood why his physical traits were... well um... not human. Lord help his short-fuse. Ryoko held her hand high in the air, gazing at her fingers.   
  
"Milady, there's a message for you on the holo-screen. Shall I bring it up?" A maid spoke quickly and softly. She stuttered a bit, but Ryoko just rolled her eyes and rested her hand by her side.  
  
Huffing, the cyan-tressed girl rested a weary hand on her forehead. "Why is it when I'm relaxed, someone has to interrupt me?"  
  
The young girl bowed, taking the blame for something totally out of her control. "Forgive me for upsetting you."  
  
"Oh, there's nothing you've done that's out of the ordinary. Ryoko just likes to complain whenever she gets the chance." Aeka rest her hand on the girl's shoulder. "Thank you, we'll take it in another room."  
  
Saying nothing, the girl bowed lower and rushed out of the room with as much stealth and haste as she entered.   
  
"Jurai or the Goddesses?" Ryoko didn't even bother to lift her head and acknowledge Aeka.  
  
"Goddesses." Aeka sat at the end of the divan, pushing Ryoko's feet to the side.   
  
There was a great division amongst powers when Ryoko and Aeka took the throne beside Tenchi. Ryoko was mature enough to empower the lighthawk wings, making her very strong. With meditation, she didn't need the power from her gems to give her any strength. Having drained the power from the gems, Ryoko discarded them, resting them in Washu's hand and closing the small lady's palm tightly around them. Not knowing what to do with the gems, Washu absorbed the memories she had once denounced into the gems. Having nothing better to do with her life, she wandered around Tokimi's realms, providing destruction as the yang to Tokimi's ying. One created and one destroyed.   
  
The scientist spent a lot of time to herself, driving Tokimi up the wall with her spiteful ignorance of the Goddess task at hand. Washu simply stated that if Tsunami didn't have to stick around and be bored out of her mind, why should she? Taking residence and sometimes actually adhering to her goddess duties alongside Tokimi, Washu was considered, once more, a high-dimensional being and a force not to be reckoned with.  
  
With a mischievous gleam in her eyes, Ryoko initiated contact through the holo-computer with Washu who was gleaming just the same on the other side. "Why did you call?"  
  
"Hello to you too, Ryoko." Washu crossed her arms. "I came as Tokimi's messenger. There's a meeting on Jurai that all allies must attend. This means you and the princess. So be there."  
  
"Do you know what this meeting is about, Washu?" Aeka stepped forward.  
  
The grown-up scientist placed her hand against her chin. "Who knows. All these boring talks about nothing, resolving nothing and actually resulting in nothing. You go there in flashy garments for a few days, show off what your planet can do and you all go him bitter with envy over the next planet's successions. Do as you wish and do what you might, but show up."  
  
"When?"  
  
"Jurai has sent ships to escort you there. I suppose when they get there is when you leave." Washu shrugged. "Anyway, I'm not going, so tell everyone I said hi. Oh... and how is Tenchi's..." she looked away, her jade eyes remorseful that she even mentioned his name. "Nevermind. Sorry. I gotta go. Take care." The holo-screen faded out.  
  
Ryoko's head dropped at the sound of Tenchi's name. She hated his name just as much as she hated visiting his grave as much as she hated presenting memorials to his triumph during anniversaries as much as she even hated sleeping in the bed he once slept in. No one knew why Ryoko hated Tenchi as much as she did except for one person, and he was long gone - never to return.  
  
Placing a sympathetic hand on Ryoko's shoulder, Aeka nodded. "Well, I suppose we should pack. Hopefully it won't be a long stay. Perhaps Tsunami only wants to discuss the natural orders and such. I mean, there's nothing epic going on."  
  
"Nothing ever epic goes on. It's the same old same old every single time. A broken record with no chance of ever making it pass that incessant skip." Ryoko sighed sadly. "The sooner we're gone, the sooner we can get back home."  
  
As for the Lady Aeka, she had three daughters by Tenchi. Two married to well-known aristocrats and barely ever kept contact with their mother. The princess didn't seem to mind, though. She really bore no emotional attachment to them. Tenchi struggled for a son that could be his successor. Any daughters he had were just daughters to marry off and branch out. When Aeka thought about it, it made him seem like such a pig to want to expand and expand and expand. Sometimes when she spoke to Ryoko at night about it, she'd call him the big hot-aired balloon, because he always wanted to expand and go further than he could. Her third, the youngest of all four of Tenchi's children (Ryoko's son included) lived in the palace with Ryoko and Aeka. The girl did as she pleased simply because she should. Once again, Aeka bore no more attachment to the girl than the other two. They spoke often, but weren't very close. The princess was afraid to get close to her or any of her daughters, in fear that what happened to her would happen to them.  
  
Ryoko, on the other hand, was very attached to her son, Ryouten. The boy was to be the heir to the throne that his father had left behind all so suddenly. When Ryouten renounced the throne, not standing by his father's views, he set out to live a life more suited to him. One that made him happy. At first, he would contact his mother every day, letting her know how Ryo-Ohki was flying and what new adventures he went on. Soon their conversations were few and far in between, until he just stopped talking to her all at once. Ryoko never gave up hope on him, she just knew he had a life of his own to live. He wasn't very fond of his sisters, the three were envious of his fortune as the boy of the family, so he avoided them when he could and fought with them when he couldn't. There was much unease in the castle until Tenchi died. After that, everything seemed to flow that much easier. It was as if a huge barrier had been broken down and the flow of serenity could pass through easily.  
  
Staring aimlessly at the sky, Ryoko saw the flash of light. A Jurian ship docked in the grand landing pad outside the palace. Not even looking back at her home before she left, Ryoko boarded the ship with Aeka on her heels, both hesitant to arrive on Jurai, but curious to know why they were summoned.   
  
Trouble indeed. The sleeper stirs.  
  
End of Ch. 2  
  
A/N: I guess I should say this is alternate universe? Or maybe just me writing on my theories of what would happen or what could happen. Hey, it COULD happen lol. Anyways, I'm just trying to build characters and pasts because I intend to bring it all together soon. Keep reading! 


	3. Tsunami's Hesitation

The Lady Tsunami had truly kept her Sasami character about her, but was painfully serious when she needed to be. She ruled over Jurai as queen when Aeka was forced to renounce her throne after her marriage to Tenchi. The princess and her father had painfully part ways after then, her mother and aunt, Funaho, forbidden to even speak with the girl. Azusa moved himself and his wives to another branched planet of Jurai. A resort of sorts that the king and his wives spent the rest of their days living without responsibility.   
  
When Ryoko and Aeka had arrived, Tsunami was meditating in a grand hall. Within a carved out tree, the goddess rest on her knees, draped in heavy robes of all the finest materials the galaxy could offer. Her headpiece hung like a veil over her face. The lengthy sleeves lay out smooth, spreading across the floor like fresh blood from a bleeding victim. her arms lay lazily at their sides and her breathing was very slow. No one dared interrupt her meditation, for that was how she communicated with the trees and the trees with her. Anxious to get out before making noise, Ryoko and Aeka turned on their heels and tip-toed out of the room.  
  
"They say you are not happy to be here. Aren't you happy to see me?" Tsunami opened her eyes, though no one could tell with the veil draped over her face.  
  
Ryoko sweatdropped, resting her hand behind her head and smiling sheepishly. "It's not like that at all."  
  
"We're just... curious as to why we were summoned." Aeka clasped her hands in front of her and stepped from behind Ryoko. "We're glad to see you."  
  
Tsunami tilted her head. "I suppose..." Waving her hand, she drew back the curtains of her hollowed refuge, and made her way towards Aeka and Ryoko. "It's good to see the both of you. Follow me."  
  
Both women followed Tsunami through countless corridors of the palace until they reached her royal chambers. Shedding a few layers, she sat comfortably in front of Ryoko and Aeka. It wasn't until she removed her veil that the queens of Earth realized that Tsunami's face looked more worried than their own.   
  
Sighing softly, Tsunami turned her gaze away from the two women. "It's the anniversary of Tenchi's death."  
  
"Here we go again..." Ryoko shut her eyes and clenched her fists, trying hard to fight her emotions.  
  
Aeka rested her hand over Ryoko's and shot a glance at her.   
  
Tsunami's face only fell into a deeper melancholy. "His death still remains a mystery?"  
  
Both women said nothing.  
  
"You've done nothing to investigate the situation?" Tsunami leaned forward.  
  
Aeka squeezed Ryoko's hand. "We've done all we possibly can to seek the truth of Tenchi's death. Unfortunately, we haven't been able to dig up even the tiniest clue as to what could have happened to him. There's nothing more we can do..." The princess lowered her head.  
  
"I see..." The blue haired girl closed her eyes. "Are investigators still on the---"  
  
Ryoko opened her eyes, locking onto Tsunami's with a piercing, malicious glare "Is this what you have summoned us for? To interrogate us about our lax ways of finding the truth out about Tenchi?"  
  
Tsunami drew back. "No, that's not it at all. Ryoko..." She leaned forward, a bit more confident, "Ryoko I just want closure." She looked away, as if her troubling mind had finally taken more on that it could bear.  
  
"The search for Tenchi's death still goes on..." The first queen closed her eyes once more. "There's nothing more to say about it."  
  
Aeka lifted her head to keep her regal composure, steeling her gaze and speaking so boldly "Tenchi's death was a tragedy, but we have a world to maintain even though he is gone. We're doing our best, if that is not good enough, there's nothing more we can do."  
  
It seemed as if some of the weight was lifted off of Tsunami's chest. Though heavily burdened, she still felt a bit more lighthearted than when the women first arrived. "I suppose..."  
  
"If all is said and done..." Ryoko extended her right hand. Tsunami bowed to press the markings of her forehead against Ryoko's hand. "We'll go home now. Oh, and for the record, the holo-screen works both ways. I don't think we need to come all the way to Jurai just to engage in idle chatter about unimportant matters." Saying nothing more, she left the room.  
  
Taken aback by Ryoko's use of "unimportant matters", both Aeka and Tsunami gasped to show their shock. Aeka's head dropped before she smiled back at her sister and hurried to catch up to Ryoko.  
  
"Tell me, Aeka... why is it that you constantly follow in Ryoko's shadow and act as if you're beneath her?" Tsunami spoke boldly.  
  
"She has the advantage over me, being the first queen and being the one bearing the son that I could not have." Aeka turned to face Tsunami and scoffed. "But we are equal, her and I. Goddesses of the same deity and equally as strong and powerful as the next. I'm not as flashy as her, granted. That's why it looks like I'm in her shadow. We handle our lives differently." The princess stood in the doorway. "Take care of yourself, Tsunami." She let the door close behind her.  
  
Tsunami draped her robe over her shoulders, weary from trying to hard to not show her true emotions. "This time every year it's so hard on me... one day I'll tell them the truth..." The queen fastened her robes and left the chambers.  
  
A secret between sisters? A dreamer never sleeps.  
  
End of ch. 3 


	4. Troubled Dreams

The pull of conscience against consciousness is always unbearable. That's why we have to sleep. We sleep because it's the only way we can bear the truth. The truth about everything...  
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
  
When Tenchi died, Ryoko and Aeka decided it best that they sleep in separate rooms instead of sharing a large bed with the king like they did when he was alive. Ryoko tangled herself in the sheets, sweating heavily, a victim to her own realities. The guilt engulfing her whole. She regretted sleeping, and often fought it till the bitter end, collapsing wherever she found it comfortable and sleeping until an attendant escorted her to bed. Ryoko's dreams were always full of torment. A nagging to find out the truth, but a longing to never know the reasons why Tenchi died.  
  
On the day their son was born, Tenchi and Ryoko celebrated. The welcomed addition would rule over Earth. The planet that Tenchi had so faithfully gaurded all these years. Now a greater planet even more so than Jurai, they could only look to Tenchi for guidance. He became their king, Ryoko and Aeka their queens. Aeka could only bear daughters, but Ryoko's many miscarriages brought her one ounce of luck in her humility, and she bore Tenchi's greatest accomplishment. The man carried his son on his shoulders like a prized trophy, always claiming that his son would be a greater king than he.  
  
Ryoten grew to resent the throne, though. It denied him a childhood, a normal life. He couldn't run outside like the boys, he was escorted to the bathroom. Who would kill a demigod anyway? One heated night, while his father boasted about how Ryoten would take the throne on his eighteenth birthday, the boy slammed his food onto the dinner table, shaking his elder sisters out of their envious daydreaming.   
  
"I won't! I will not become king of this or any other planet! Let one of the girls become queen!"  
  
Aeka's three sat at attention. The second queen, herself, slid lower into her chair.  
  
It wouldn't be the first time Ryoten and Tenchi had fought so violently. He had the fire of his mother and the speed to match. Times like those, Ryoko often threw herself in front of her son, who was still no match for Tenchi's Juraian strength.   
  
"Well forget it! There's no way I'm becoming king! I renounce the throne and I renounce this family!"  
  
Ryoko clutched the table, sitting quietly as her son stormed out of the palace and out of her life. From them on, she could only blame Tenchi for pushing the boy too hard and not letting him live. Inside, she wished he would die for all the pain he had caused her. She wouldn't dare raise a hand to strike him dead, but if the opportunity arose for him to die, she wouldn't do a thing to help him.  
  
One day, he just died. As simple as that. He had gone on a walk, and they found him dead not so soon after he left the palace. When he died, Aeka was grief-stricken, but quickly recovered. Ryoko could never show any expression of pain and misery of loss, instead she only shut herself inside her room, realizing that she had lost her son, and her husband's death turned out to be no consolation.   
  
Since then, her dreams were painful daggers to her aching heart. Aching more with the worries and regrets of her past decisions. Why had she agreed to marry Tenchi even though she knew he would turn around and marry Aeka not so soon after? Perhaps because she was simply there first? When did he become so arrogant? Tenchi always had this annoying knack for being naive and not picking up on emotions right away, but he was never such an aggressive and boisterous man until he became King.  
  
The girl clenched her silken sheets tighter, trying to transfer pain and misery into the sheets that covered her body. Droplets of sweat collected on her furrowed brow, she buried her face in her pillow to keep from screaming out loud. Had life been this hard when she was Kagato's slave? She couldn't even remember.  
  
In a corner of a white room, a young boy crouch down crying. His hair was matted to his forehead, he stared up at his watcher with amber eyes. Shivering, he took the hand extended to him. The boy had been crying in the rain. The white room faded into an elegant maze of hedges. Now the boy was crying in one of the dead ends, the rain pouring down upon his frail body like lashes from a wet bamboo stick. And the one who watched him? That was Ryoko.  
  
Ryoko extended her hand to the crying boy. "Ryoten, come to me." She silently pleaded. His father had punished him once again for touching Tenchi-ken. "Don't cross your father anymore."  
  
"It came to me..." Ryoten extended his arm to take his mother's hand, but his body started to sink into a pool of blood.   
  
"Ryoten!! Take my hand!!!" Ryoko called out desperately.   
  
The boy struggled to grab at his mother's hands, but he was being pulled back by a pair of hands. Tokimi's image appeared before Ryoko, drawing her son back and into her dwelling. Two shilouettes remained behind the woman, but only Tsunami's was lit. The goddess of Jurai only stared off into the distance, with a look of worry on her face.   
  
"NO!" Ryoko felt like she was falling. "Nooooo!"   
  
She hit the floor and opened her eyes. She realized she was staring up at the ceiling of her bedroom. Placing her hand against her brow, Ryoko wiped the sweat off her face and walked into the bathroom.   
  
"The same dream every night..." The first queen of Earth washed her face and sat out on the terrace, hoping to calm her nerves before attempting to sleep again. Stretching like a cat, Ryoko yawned big and turned to her left. On the opposite terrace, Aeka was gazing into Ryoko's eyes.   
  
"You couldn't sleep either?" Aeka cradled a cup of tea in her long, graceful fingers.  
  
Ryoko sighed. "No. Couldn't sleep..." She ran her fingers through her hair.  
  
Aeka breathed deep before she attempted to say anything more. "Ryoko, I really think we should find out about Tenchi's death. I think if we lay the mystery to rest, we both can sleep better at night."  
  
"What would it solve, Aeka?"  
  
"The riddles of our dreams, Ryoko." Aeka looked painfully serious.  
  
Ryoko's hands dropped at her sides. "You've been having strange dreams too?"  
  
"Ever since he died..."  
  
The pirate shook her head. "If you think solving the reason why Tenchi died would put our minds to rest, I'd do it. I'd do anything to get a good night's sleep right about now."  
  
"Well..." Aeka pushed back the door to her bedroom. "Come on..."  
  
Ryoko laughed to herself before she lept from her terrace to Aeka's "This is sad, I remember when we couldn't even stand the sight of each other, now I need you to sleep..."  
  
A quest for truth. Are dreams for those who seek the truth?  
  
end of ch. 4 


End file.
